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OVERVIEW: SUMMER 2013 AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

Summer at Walt Disney World—loosely defined as Memorial Day in late May through Labor Day in early September–is an often difficult season.

Summer Disney World weather is hot and humid, and in mid-August shifts to hot, humid, and also the peak of the hurricane season.

Summer crowds at Disney World are very high most of the summer–lightest in the last part of August, and also lighter in early June. They peak over the Fourth of July holiday.

Disney World summer prices show a different pattern in 2013 than in prior years, and begin high only at the value resorts.  They drop to near their lowest level of the year at the deluxe resorts resorts in mid-July, and at the moderate resorts and value resorts in early August.

Deals and discounts are available for parts of this period.

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DISNEY WORLD DINING CHOICES

Welcome to those coming from Capturing Magical Memories and those of you just hopping aboard.

I am the 3rd stop on our Magical Blogorail. Enjoy the ride as this month Magical Blogorail Teal discusses Walt Disney World restaurants!

This site has both suggestions and rankings for Walt Disney world dining.

Each of its integrated itineraries has a full set of dining suggestions. These suggestions are enduringly family-pleasing–especially kid-pleasing–experiences.   A full list of what’s in the Basic December Itinerary is here.

In addition, it offers ordered rankings of the theme park table service restaurants, of the resort hotel table service restaurants, and of character meals and dinner shows.

The first two of these are tricky, as I’ve tried to balance dining for adults with what kids like, with the emphasis on adults. The results, frankly, could be endlessly argued about.

So as a final aid, the site also provides The Comprehensive Guide to Walt Disney World Dining.

For families with kids who aren’t paying attention to my suggestions, the Comprehensive Guide is the place to start, but it also serves adults just looking for the best dining on a night out.

That’s because it has two rankings for each table service possibility, in a matrix: one for kids, and one for adults.  Thus any choice can be filtered for kid appeal, for adult appeal, or for both.

CHOICES FOR THE BEST OF DISNEY DINING

Which of the Disney World dining options is my strongest recommendation, or my favorite?  Well, none, for a couple of reasons. 

First, I’m just kind of a counter- service guy.

Let me have the rib dinner from the food court at Port Orleans French Quarter and I’m happy as a clam!

That is, so long as the sides are mashed potatoes and collard greens, and I eat it in the right order–first the ribs, then the collard greens, and only then the mashed potatoes, mixed in with what’s left on the plate of the greens!

Or breakfast from any resort’s food court is special for me.

Though I mostly just love traditional breakfast foods, this is also partly symbolic.

Most mornings at Walt Disney World I’m up early and “working”–either working at my real job or on this site, or researching this site in the parks.  That means I tend to miss breakfasts in the resorts…so when I get one, it means an easy day!

Second, when I’m at Walt Disney World, table service dining is not a huge priority, for a couple of reasons.

I visit six to eight times a year, and half those times are solo--I’m there alone to research something for this site.

And by temperament I’m just not someone who’s going to reserve a solo spot at Akershus or the Crystal Palace…although sometimes, when I’m particularly missing Paris, I’ll order appetizers and coffee for brunch at Chefs de France, while finishing off the morning’s Wall Street Journal and faking like it’s the International Herald Tribune.

The other half of my time, I’m with some or all of my family.

Now my wife and older son are very much table-service people, and if they had their way, every trip would have multiple table service meals, at Jiko, Citricos, Artist Point, and the like, with perhaps a side round-trip flight to Charleston for Husk.

If we ate the way these two would love to eat, we’d only be able to afford to be at Disney World once every three years!

MORE DISNEY WORLD DINING FROM MAGICAL BLOGORAIL TEAL

Thank you for joining me today. Your next stop on the Magical Blogorail Loop is Heidi’s Head.

Here is the map of our Magical Blogorail Teal loop should you happen to have to make a stop along the way and want to reboard:

• 1st Stop ~ The Many Adventures of a Disney-Lovin’ Spectrum Mom
• 2nd Stop ~  Capturing Magical Memories
• 3rd Stop ~ Your First Visit
• Final Stop ~  Heidi’s Head

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THE COUNTRY BEAR JAMBOREE

The Country Bear Jamboree re-opened late last year in Frontierland at the Magic Kingdom after a two-month hiatus for repair and refreshing.

The figures that are the center of the attraction were re-done (and re-furred), and multiple other rehabs and replacements were done as well.  My friend Jodi has a video of Imagineers discussing the re-do on her site here.

The show was also tightened up a bit–two songs were cut, one was moved, and some dialog was sliced.

The tightening didn’t change the tone of the show much–it’s still Country Bear Jamboree: one of my favorites, but definitely an attraction that some families can skip.

REVIEW: THE COUNTRY BEAR JAMBOREE

The Country Bear Jamboree is one of the rides that opened when the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, and was one of the few there that had no precedent in Disneyland.

It features an active and fun medley of Americana-inspired, mostly humorous, songs presented on five related stages by more than a dozen audio-animatronic bears–and a few other animals as well!

At opening, the bears were a tour de force, and were the highest expression of Disney’s audio-animatronic skills to date. This, and the fun of the songs, meant that the attraction was wildly popular.

Since then, the technology has been eclipsed by other instances–e.g., Epcot’s The American Adventure, and tastes have shifted away from roots music.

As a result, the ride has become less popular, especially with returning visitors–although little kids continued to love it.

The refresh and update of the show improves its attractiveness to both first time and returning visitors by cleaning it up, tightening and shortening it. The shortening -from about 15 minutes to about 11 minutes–also increases the show’s hourly capacity.

Improving the attractions’ attractiveness and increasing its capacity at the same time is a good thing both for visitors to the show and everybody else.

The more people that see the Country Bear Jamboree, the fewer people in lines everywhere else!

And this may be working…when we saw it in mid-December 2012, my wife and my were among only a dozen or so in the audience  but on a late January 2013 visit, the show was more than half full!

While a couple of songs have been cut (and one moved) the basic musical approach remains the same.

This is not the “Country Music” of Garth Brooks stadium shows.  Rather, the music is of another, simpler era, combining influences and songwriters from Appalachian folk music, bluegrass, Bakersfield-style country, and the vaudeville country of Kenneth C. Burnes and Henry D. Haynes.

The song list is unified both by a generally comic presentation and–as in much great music*–by the bass line, which in almost all the songs relies on the traditional root-fifth, root-fifth pattern.

The music is off-putting to some who don’t have wide-ranging or tolerant musical tastes.  Too bad for them.  For little kids the show is a hoot, and for most of the rest of us it’s an enjoyable “C” Ticket.

For more history, and more and better photos, see my friend Mike’s review here.

*That’s me and my bass on the far right…

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: JANUARY 26, 2013 TO FEBRUARY 3, 2013

The material below details operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

The same stuff is in the table, but organized by park, not by topic.

(For more on January 2013, see this.)

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ADULT SUPERVISION FOR MATERIAL ON MILITARY FAMILIES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

Longtime readers of this site’s comments (that is, my mom) will know the name “Steve from MilitaryDisneyTips.com” as that of an expert who helps out all the time when I’m over my head on some of the complexities that military families face at Walt Disney World.  See for example this.

Disney World has a variety of great opportunities for military families, but since they exist at the intersection of two of the world’s great bureaucracies, sorting out who is eligible for what when can be a trial.

Steve has helped this site’s readers with these and other issues for years now, and now we’ve agreed to formalize this relationship and he’s become the “official” moderator of comments and questions on this site’s military family pages!

ABOUT STEVE

Steve brings both Disney World and military expertise.

His Disney World background began even before the Magic Kingdom opened, as he and his family began their Disney World story with a visit to the old Welcome Center.

Soon they visited the Magic Kingdom itself, and that’s been followed by dozens of visits since to Walt Disney World.  Moreover, Steve also worked for years as a Magic Kingdom cast member!

His cast member experience was preceded and followed by stints in the Air Force, from which he retired as a Chief Master Sergeant in 2012.

There’s nothing quite like the combination of being both a former very senior NCO and a former Disney World cast member for bringing insight and compassion to military families planning their Disney World visits.

Steve’s been combining these two skill sets for almost five years on his site Military Disney Tips and its associated blog.

I first ran across him, I think, in 2009 when I was expanding my material for military families and realized that my readers would often be better served from me just linking to his pages rather than writing a lot about stuff I only partially understand.

Since then we’ve become tight collaborators and friends, and, in trying to help our readers as best we can, we have sent tens of thousands of them to each other’s sites.  And he’s always been willing to take the time to help out when I’m over my head!

So I was happy as a clam when he said he’d be willing to formally take on the role of moderating this site’s military family comments!

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NEW FANTASYLAND SO FAR

In 2012, two major parts of Disney World’s Fantasyland Expansion opened: Storybook Circus, which opened bit by bit over the course of the year, and major parts of the Enchanted Forest, which opened formally in December.

Still coming are the Princess Fairytale Hall, expected to open in 2013, and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, whose opening date–never formally announced–seems to be possibly slipping to 2014.

New Fantasyland was much hyped, and so far is a bit of a disappointment–although the only fair grade is “incomplete.”

The disappointment is partly that it doesn’t live up to the hype. For all the hoopla, so far there’s only two new attractions:

• One of them, Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid, is ho-hum for all but big fans of the film
• The other, Enchanted Tales with Belle, while as good as anything at Disney World, has sharply limited capacity

In totality, though, New Fantasyland is a nice achievement.

Besides the two new attractions, it includes two fine new restaurants, a fundamental and successful re-theming of the area that used to be Toontown Fair into a fun circus-themed area, and a doubling of the low-capacity Dumbo.

For first time visitors, New Fantasyland is almost entirely positive.

• While Belle and Ariel have been well-represented at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for years, they are now much more profoundly present at the Magic Kingdom where, as princesses, they fit quite well.
• Each of the new dining options comes in at the top of its class–at a park where dining quality has been an issue for decades.
• The totality of the additions will absorb thousands of people at busier times, relieving a bit congestion in other parts of the park.

For returning visitors, the grade comes closer to “incomplete.”  

While there’s much to be charmed by at what’s been achieved so far, returning visitors will be more sensitive to the mismatch between hype and achievement, and there will be some who miss Snow White’s Scary Adventures or Minnie’s House.

But it’ll be interesting to see if Princess Fairytale Hall is more like the wonderful Enchanted Tales with Belle than, say, like the so-so Ariel’s Grotto, and of course the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train has great potential.

If Seven Dwarfs is at least a “D” Ticket ride–an experience on par with, for example, Mickey’s Philharmagic–then New Fantasyland will end up being pretty special.

If it’s another “C” Ticket like Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid, then this expansion–the largest in the Magic Kingdom’s history–really will go down as a profoundly missed opportunity.

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